Google is making it easier to remove and update search results that contain your personal information. The company’s tool for identifying personal information such as addresses and phone numbers that appear in Search has been updated to make it “easier than ever” for users to sign up and to submit removal requests directly from the Search page.
The “Results About You” tool can help people proactively control what sensitive information appears in Search results so that it can be found by anyone. You sign up by providing Google with the name, addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses you want it to crawl. (Google says your contact information is “not shared or used to personalize your experience across other Google products.”) You will be notified when your data is detected so that you can request its removal.
Previously, this tool was hidden unless you were using the Google app – on mobile and desktop, it was hidden deep within the History settings of Google user accounts. It’s also currently only available to users in the US, UK, Ireland, Australia, Canada, South Africa, Brazil, Mexico, Spain, France, Sweden, Thailand, India, and Indonesia, but will be expanded to more countries in the future.
Clicking on the three-dot menu next to the results in Google Search will now display a “delete this result” option that users can click on to quickly request removal and understand what information is being deleted. Once opened, three request options will appear: personal information, which includes doxing content described on Google’s help page; legal removal to indicate illegal content such as copyright infringement and child abuse; and requests to update outdated search results.
The latter feature is intended for situations where users have updated, corrected or removed information from a website, but these changes have not been reflected in the search results. By selecting this option, Google will be prompted to review the website linked to in the search results and update its information.
